OpenTable cuts staff

The company, which offers online restaurant reservations, lays off 25 percent of its staff as part of a corporate restructuring.

January 2, 20024:43 PM PST

OpenTable.com, which offers online restaurant reservations, laid off 25 percent of its staff Thursday as part of a corporate restructuring.

The San Francisco-based company laid off one-third of its sales force and 40 overall staff members. In addition, Andy England, OpenTable's vice president of marketing, has resigned, the company said.

Despite the layoffs, OpenTable is not ailing, company spokeswoman Regan Daniels said, noting that the company raised $42 million in fourth-round funding in October.

"This just means that we are a leaner company, with less expenses going into the new year," Daniels said. "This is a good thing from the company's perspective. Obviously we're sorry to have to let the employees go."

The layoffs at OpenTable.com are only the latest for an e-business company.

Most of the job cuts at OpenTable were in the company's San Francisco headquarters, Daniels said. But the company's satellite offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and other locations were also affected, she said.

No executives were laid off, Daniels said. England left OpenTable two weeks ago as a result of the company's move away from targeting consumers and toward the business-to-business market, she said.

"Andy had a strong consumer brand-building background and he felt his skills would not be as valuable to the organization under its current structure as they once were," Daniels said, adding that England left under "amicable circumstances."

OpenTable paid the laid-off workers their unused vacation time and two weeks' severance pay, Daniels said.